Global Microsoft outage: local effects
A failure in Microsoft software is affecting industries and systems worldwide. Some airlines are affected, so that’s causing some cancelled and delayed flights at Trudeau. I’ll add any other local effects here as they get reported.
I saw on social media last night one report that some Bixi stations had not been working properly, but I’ve no idea whether it’s part of this picture.
MarcG 08:58 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
I wonder how this is affecting hospitals… Uatu?
Blork 10:15 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
Not to be alarmist or anything, but this is a glimpse at the extent to which we are becoming dependent on our digital systems. A glitch in Microsoft Azure’s cloud system simultaneously with a bug in a third-party security update and look at the extent of the chaos. Now imagine the chaos (not if, but when) a malevolent actor (Russia? China?) decides to disrupt things on purpose in a war scenario.
There is no solution. We’re not going to backtrack on the global app-ification of human life. The 21st century is digital. And the 22nd century will be pandemonium because humans will no longer be in control and will not know how to do anything that isn’t computerized. The techno-utopians ought to pause and consider.
Just sayin! 🙂
Uatu 10:24 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
Everything seems to be ok where I am, but I can’t speak for the rest of the hospital
nau 11:21 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
Possibly related: Réno-Dépôt was cash only this morning.
Mozai 11:42 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
“Not to be alarmist or anything, but [rings alarm]”
The “solution” is to stop putting our eggs in one basket, even if it’s cheaper to do it that way. Doesn’t matter if it’s security consultants, medicine, liquor, car manufacturing, gasoline, gewgaws or whatchamacallits, if a broad span of businesses all depend on a single supplier, and that single supplier falls down, that broad span of businesses fall down with it. You don’t need to be a techno-utopian to be vulnerable to this; it’s a well-known fact in evolutionary biology what happens to a species that becomes hyper-efficient in their ecological niche.
This event isn’t because “computers bad,” its because we’re sacrificing resilience to gain competitive efficiency, and we can make that mistake even if we still used paper ledgers.
Kevin 11:50 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
Nau
That was related to this failure.
Stop putting business majors in charge of companies, because they don’t understand the benefit of resilience/loyalty/reliability.
Blork 11:54 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
Exactly. When I say “there is no solution” what I mean is “there will be no solution” because we will always sacrifice resilience to gain competitive efficiency.
So yeah, it’s not “computers bad,” it’s “how we design and implement our systems via computers” that is bad, and I cannot see that ever changing.
walkerp 12:05 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
Also basically no regulation in the industry which allows for market dominance and then when somebody like Crowdstrike who are growing into the biggest cloud security company screws up it has major impact.
Jim Strankinga 12:25 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
‘basically no regulation in the industry’ lol.
walkerp 13:42 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
Looks like we got us a nerd, folks!
bob 14:03 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
Blork – AI isn’t what you think it is, and the systems that the internet depends on are already automated to the extent that no single person really knows how the whole thing works. Everything is already computerized and has been, effectively, for decades, depending on what you want to count as a computer. Your vision of the 22nd century has already happened. You don’t need some movie version general AI for systems to run themselves. Recall how WWI spun up outside of human control because they gave control to paper – treaties and war plans and mobilization schedules that no one could stop if they wanted to. Computers and code are not the system, they are the machines we have made to make the system work faster.
Kevin 18:39 on 2024-07-19 Permalink
Working faster is fine as long as the key people check and verify changes.
But companies now view verification as an incomprehensible expense instead of a core value, and so we end up with a company that no one heard of before today getting rubberstamped by the backbone of almost everything, and half the world shuts down.
jaddle 12:11 on 2024-07-20 Permalink
We aren’t going to stop using digital tools, but we can certainly move away from the ultra-consolidated monopolies that are currently ubiquitous. It’s a lot like ecological monocultures – if you have vast areas (farmland, cultivated “forests”, etc) populated by a single species, it doesn’t take much for a single disease or other environmental problem to wreak total havoc. A normal ecosystem is vastly more varied, so even a very nasty virus still leaves countless other species unaffected, and able to fill the gaps created. We need a lot more variety and competition in all our industries, especially in tech!!
Tee Owe 16:48 on 2024-07-20 Permalink
$$$ – if the companies involved had to to pay to compensate for all of this, then something might change – if not, then forget it